At the convention center I stop by the booth a last time, and realizing I haven't done this yet, I ask a nearby vendor to take a photo with my phone, and she obliges:

Everything is in a state of disassembly, and I notice that on the ground by the tables there are two signed posters made out to people. I contact the helpful staff member Jason Williams and he meets me at the table. We discuss what to do about that, and I ultimately decide to take them with me as I know there's a high likelihood that they'd be forgotten about. I also give Jason one of the signed posters as he'd expressed an interest in getting one but didn't have the opportunity the day prior as he was busy providing support throughout the convention.

With that done, I check by the T-shirt booth, and they've resupplied some of the SWAT Kats shirts, so I buy another $100 worth of them and it's at this point I'm starting to notice that I've got too much stuff and I can't carry it effectively. I go from vendor to vendor, and after about an hour I'm able to obtain some cardboard boxes of which I use to make an interior safe area for the posters and then use the T-shirts and other assorted items to pad. I also drop my tripod in there as I don't need it anymore. It's awkward, and I have to shoulder carry it all over the place while dragging my wheeled luggage and carry-on behind me. It's nearing noon...

EDIT:

I had another couple paragraphs written but I lost them due to a browser crash. Will add more later.

I purchase some anime, Ghostbusters and X-Files souvenirs for some people, and as the clock is ticking I take some more photos of cosplayers and some last video. Keep in mind this was Sunday morning, meaning that there aren't as many people as there were the previous two days.

It's noon, and I'm starting to feel a little concerned. My flight leaves in two hours and I'm still on the convention floor. I realize that TSA security check-in could take up to 90 minutes depending on the level of activity at the airport and the size of the airport, and my mental frame of reference is still Reno-sized. Houston is about... maybe conservatively one million times the size of Reno so I quickly start to depart with all of this stuff I'm carrying/dragging on my person. BUT, not before I stop by the check-in desk to retrieve one last keepsake - my 3-day pass lanyard/badge that I never picked up. There's a person who I'd been planning to send it to because I suspected it might mean a lot to her (I'll tell who later).

I get outside, navigate through traffic and construction on foot, and wind up collapsing on the sidewalk in front of the Hilton carpool across the street from the convention center. I check my Uber app, but all the wait times are close to 20 min. and there's a cab right in front of me. I wave the guy and he gets out and helps me load my stuff. I tell him I'm running late to the airport and that's enough said. He navigates the street like a pro (probably committing a few moving violations in the process) and he gets me to HOBBY (airport) in easily half the time it took on Friday. He was really conversational and knew a quicker way to get me to the exact airline entrance I needed to be at. He even snagged me one of those paid luggage carriers someone had abandoned, saving me effort and time. This guy was really entertaining, and had a lot of stories about surviving Hurricane Katrina, his family's immigration from El Salvador, and even which beach was the "least polluted" in Galveston if I was ever back. I gave this guy a $20.00 tip and thanked him for his speed and aid, and I checked my extra luggage at the airport. A giant box was only an extra $28 to my surprise (I was expecting more).

I make my way through HOBBY's security which takes about 30 minutes, to which I have to spend extra time with a TSA agent who has to check my carry-on. Turns out a deck of those plastic lanyard badges set off their scanners for some reason. With that done, I collect myself and get to the terminal, where I purchase some Chinese food and eat a lunch before boarding my plane:

It's at this point that I email our helpful admin Poecat to ask her to do me a favor and see if she can organize our talented artists to put together something for Katrina to wish her well.

My flight connects me from Houston to Dallas, where I have to spend an extra hour due to a flight delay. It's probably the biggest airport I've ever been to:

This is the one time I have some Texas BBQ (allegedly - it is from an airport so who knows ) and I take the extra time to listen to the backup audio from my recorder which covers most everything from the past two days. My last connection takes me from Dallas to Reno, probably the longest flight for the weekend. I listen to the audio on my Bose which in fact do filter out airplane noises as advertised. I arrive back in Reno at 8pm local time. I'm picked up by friends and I return a lot of my borrowed photo equipment, go to dinner at a Popeyes, and get home by about 10pm. Once there, I hastily throw together an edited video which takes me until a little after midnight, setup a YouTube channel, and go to sleep. I go to work on Monday, still feeling awful, and take Tuesday off, which allows me to edit together the video that Christian said he needed by Wednesday.

Alright, that's the bulk of everything, but there's one part I've omitted as I wasn't really sure whether or not to share it. This is the kind of thing that has the potential to really alienate people, so I've been hesitant to share, but after thinking about it for two months, I decided I may as well disclose this (which will also lead to me disclosing something regrettable).

During my initial back-and-forth communications in the week leading up to my departure, I booked reservations at Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse, one of the highest reputed restaurants in Houston (and conveniently only a few blocks away from the convention center) for Friday night at 8:30pm local time. I might as well copy and paste what I've communicated to a few of you already:

Anyway, I knew that after traveling, autographs and speaking all day they'd just want to take a break and enjoy themselves for a little while. That's why I told Christian last week I'd booked reservations at Vic & Anthony's, which was rated as one of Houston's best restaurants (and it certainly was):

We were there for two hours, talked, had fun, discussed various non-SK things, Lance and Christian reminisced about some of their industry experiences, Lance talked about his work at Scooby Doo, shared some of his design work for a mecha version of the Mystery Machine, we talked about the panels, discussed ideas for Saturday, what they thought about Friday night's panel and some of the questions ("is Mayor Manx Scottish" really amused them).

I've taken several French courses in college (though most of the language escapes me, I do remember a lot about the culture), and Yvon's stoic expression generally reflects that. Most French people, contrary to Americans for instance, don't smile if there's no reason to. I've always kind of liked that - it's a trait that I have myself. I did pull this line out of the back of my mind when we first met up in the morning at the booth: "Bonjour, je m'appelle Matt, je parle français un peu."

And, that made him smile.

Near the conclusion of the meal, Yvon leaned over to me and said in English "This is the best steak I've ever eaten," and considering they came from Southern California (where the best food in the country is purported to be) and his own cultural background, that was very high praise.

This may not be that much of a surprise if you looked through all of the photos in the gallery:

So, to answer some of the rumors that have come my way, yes, I did take all of them out to dinner at a very fancy (and very expensive) restaurant

What did we talk about? Mostly about the day's events and what I had planned for the next day (pretty much all of which you've seen by now). There were some confidential things (mostly industry related - a few names dropped and some of their experiences, but it wasn't particularly SWAT Kats related so I don't feel the need to share).

But, here's a few items I jotted down afterward:

Dark Kat is a judge by day, bad guy by night - idea seemed very enticing to Lance - this came up during general conversation. The idea of Dark Kat being a judge/former judge seemed very familiar to Christian and he said it was likely a part of the early character development work, though he could not pin down any specific references but he said it was a very familiar sounding concept.

Lance Falk wrote all of the Promotional Sheet / Stylebook copy.

Christian recalled his experience with Lunatics Unleashed and gave a very key insight into why he's become so protective of work that's in development (Bugs Bunny incident), and why a lot of the details surrounding SK Revolution are less open than he would like them to be, but his experience has forced him to change the openness (it has nothing to do with fans, but how politics within the industry can work). He very passionately expressed his disappointment in how Lunatics Unleashed was inaccurately portrayed during pre-production. You can research this online as it's out there if you look for it.

Even though this has been expressed in the past, Lance in particular reiterated their inability to accept or look at story proposals from fans due to litigation and Writers Guild union issues (I thought this was obvious, but apparently people still try to send them stuff).

Lots of back and forth about the industry, lots of first names dropped, SOMEONE at the unnamed studio they're pitching to really likes SWAT Kats, and is also a friend of the Tremblays - this SOMEONE wants to pursue the Revolution project, but needs a window (too many projects at the moment) and evidence of popularity (the kickstarter was a major step, and the convention should be another) to help push this show on his/her studio peers.

Lance recalled the challenges of transitioning from traditional analog work to using digital/Photoshop.

Lots of back-and-forth between Lance and the Tremblays, it was a bit of a reunion for them. I just made myself shut-up most of the time so as not to interfere

Even though I told him I didn't need to see anything, Christian pulled out his phone to show me some new vehicle concept artwork. I think it's safe to partially describe it:

The new art style is very "aggressive" and action-exaggerated (think mech robot or Cybertron on steroids). They're going to really try to diversify gadgets and vehicles to attract a number of merchandise angles from toys to video games.

Anyway, that's most of the interesting stuff from dinner. There's something else, but I'll detail that in my next post.

I'm currently seing Lunnatics Unleashed and it's good, but I feel like something is missing... Don't ask me why. Anyway, I love how Sylvester was added into the series XD

MoDaD wrote:The new art style is very "aggressive" and action-exaggerated (think mech robot or Cybertron on steroids). They're going to really try to diversify gadgets and vehicles to attract a number of merchandise angles from toys to video games.

Looks good! But I would rather prefer it to not be like an actual action film ("Pew, pew!", "BANG!" and a big explosion with things flying everywhere, then repeat it every 5 minutes for the entire film).
And please... PLEASE!!! I WANT AN ONLINE GAAAAAAAME!!!!!! (Or at least a new generation console game ᶘ *ᴥ*ᶅ).

And, here’s the part that’s been weighing heavily on me for months now. It’s really demoralizing because it’s entirely my fault. I hate to end this thread on a downer, but I feel that this needs to be disclosed because so many of you have asked me to elaborate on this and I think you deserve to know, despite it making me look bad. I also think it’s an important experience to share that hopefully something can be gleaned from.

24 hours prior to my departure I was scrambling to get everything in order. With less than an hour before I’d leave to the airport I realized a two things. One: I needed more SD cards.

And two, I needed to do/have something for everyone (or at least as many people as I could). Something to make people feel included or to be a part of the event somehow. At this point I was still dubious as to what was going to happen (in the back of my mind I was still concerned my access would be denied and the dinner plans would fall through).

With only minutes to think I remembered the MegakatCity.com art thread, and I thought to myself “why not pick some examples from some of our great artists and have the Tremblays and Lance take a look and leave hand-written replies on, and then mail those to the respective people?”

Not the most creative idea, but I thought it would be better than nothing, so I tracked down as many high resolution versions of art examples from some of our artists as I could in a few minutes and put together a packet (if you did not already receive one by now that means I missed you – you have my permission to hate me for eternity).

There was also an additional page that was an ensemble for things I didn’t have time to make their own pages, which I think is okay to share here:

I’d envisioned this being the closing image to this thread two months ago, but circumstances changed…

I had this packet stuffed in my equipment bag throughout the day Friday, and about 90 minutes into dinner during the course of conversation the many talented artists in the SWAT Kats fandom came up, and I thought to myself “this seems like a natural segue” and I mentioned the packet and they were really eager to see the work. Christian was very interested in all of it, and Lance commented several times that many of you are better artists than he is.

There was one in particular that stood out due to a comic she had labored on and put together in an incredibly short amount of time. I had a full copy of this printed out that I shared with them to serve as an example of the fandom’s awesome level of participation, to show how much the series meant to people, and how much the Kickstarter effort has helped to rejuvenate online activity.

All three of them were very impressed, and Christian said that he’d seen it (and other items) and while the conversation at the table continued between myself and Lance, Christian was transfixed on this particular work for a good 10 minutes. I think there’s just something about having something in-hand as opposed to on a monitor that made it all the more impressive. They all left handwritten comments reflecting their appreciation.

Later that evening once back at my hotel I finally had an opportunity to check things on my phone (email/forum/twitter).

I was really eager to contact this particular artist first to let her know I was there, my level of access and also to start to get some follow-up ideas (from her and others) now that I knew for certain about Saturday.

As we’d developed a rapport over the year, I forwarded her some pictures of the signed items in question, playing dumb with a “look what someone sent to me” kind of tone. The responses I received were completely unexpected, but as it sank in, I began to realize just what it was that I did, and in hindsight I have no idea why I didn’t realize it at the time. It was even a topic on this very forum, and I completely forgot about it.

Out of respect for the artist I’m not going into specifics, but I feel obligated to share something with all of you as I feel you’re entitled to some kind of explanation.

So, here’s the explanation:

I did something very wrong: I stole something. And it’s something that can never be returned. I stole the opportunity of an artist to debut her work, and put myself into the middle of something without permission that I had no right to do.

I still forwarded this person the items I’d already wanted to get to them to begin with before this incident (this is the same person I referenced regarding the 3-day lanyard and badge pass earlier) along with T-shirts, a signed poster and other misc. convention items, along with the signed items. So, at the very least, she has those, which despite our irreparable professional relationship I still wanted to make sure she had, because she deserves them.

I knew that going to the convention, my attendance would change things. There’d be “before” and there’d be “after.” I knew that things would be different, but due to my carelessness it wound up costing something that I deeply regret.

So, once again, my most sincere of apologies to her, and my most sincere of apologies to all of you who I did the same thing to. I had no right to do what I did. There’s really no way for me to make amends. If people think I should step down or go away or surrender whatever “position” I have here I wouldn’t disagree.

This has been in the back of my mind for awhile now and it’s been eating me up, because I’ve always had a huge amount of respect for what artists do in this fandom (and this one in particular), and to have hurt one of you so deeply is just…I don’t really have words to describe the level of disappointment I have toward myself.

I'm sorry not just for hear that, but also for that artist (I can imagine of who you are talking about). People commit mistakes, it's part of all's life and what teaches us lessons for our future. If that person thinks the same, i'm sure she will forgive you at some time if she haven't already, as probably the rest of Megakatcity.com members would do. So please, just remember it for the next time so you have truly learnt of this and don't let it become an unmovable weight for the rest of your life.

MoDaD wrote:And, here’s the part that’s been weighing heavily on me for months now. It’s really demoralizing because it’s entirely my fault. I hate to end this thread on a downer, but I feel that this needs to be disclosed because so many of you have asked me to elaborate on this and I think you deserve to know, despite it making me look bad. I also think it’s an important experience to share that hopefully something can be gleaned from.

MoDaD... you are being way too hard on yourself, man.

I know two other artists who were touched that you thought of them. I myself was flattered. This makes at least three artists you did this for very grateful and thrilled you thought so highly of us and our fan work. Having them also write positive remarks and all on hard copies for the artists you were able to have time for was beyond wonderful.

It's a shame that you had a falling out with someone over this. Hopefully time will help heal all wounds, that the gesture will be seen as your attempt at appreciation for their work. You've apologized and accepted responsibility and that's all you can do. What's done is done. Don't let one bad reaction towards something you did cause you to drop out of the fandom entirely. I see no reason for you to be removed as moderator here or quit participating elsewhere.

You had good intentions and things just went in a way you didn't expect. Like I wrote in my rather long PM I've sent you a short time ago, this could also have happened to me because I hadn't thought about that too.

Furthermore, I think there's either none or both of you to blame. You could have asked before doing that and the artist could have told you what she was planning to do. That's how I see it and I think that's all what I have to say about this in this thread.

And don't even think about leaving or surrendering anything. There's no need for that.

MoDaD wrote:There was also an additional page that was an ensemble for things I didn’t have time to make their own pages, which I think is okay to share here:

Thank you for posting this. I really feel appreciated and I assume the others mentioned on that page are feeling like this too. (The apology to Kooshmeister for Dr. Zyme is just hilarious. )

MoDaD wrote:And, here’s the part that’s been weighing heavily on me for months now. It’s really demoralizing because it’s entirely my fault. I hate to end this thread on a downer, but I feel that this needs to be disclosed because so many of you have asked me to elaborate on this and I think you deserve to know, despite it making me look bad. I also think it’s an important experience to share that hopefully something can be gleaned from.

MoDaD... you are being way too hard on yourself, man.

I know two other artists who were touched that you thought of them. I myself was flattered. This makes at least three artists you did this for very grateful and thrilled you thought so highly of us and our fan work. Having them also write positive remarks and all on hard copies for the artists you were able to have time for was beyond wonderful.

It's a shame that you had a falling out with someone over this. Hopefully time will help heal all wounds, that the gesture will be seen as your attempt at appreciation for their work. You've apologized and accepted responsibility and that's all you can do. What's done is done. Don't let one bad reaction towards something you did cause you to drop out of the fandom entirely. I see no reason for you to be removed as moderator here or quit participating elsewhere.

I am with Felony on this one.
You are being really hard on yourself, MoDaD. I am very grateful for everything you've done, and you've done so much for the fans, artists and fandom as a whole, that I don't even know where to start. When I was going through your posts, I was amazed and was constatntly thinking "Wow, dude... this was quite an organization, MoDaD went above and beyond with all of this..".
You don't know how grateful I am, you did an amazing job and I think that you should not be removed from your moderator position. I totally understand your situation and I really hope this will be resolved in the best possible way.

I agree that you are being to hard on yourself. But of course we can't make you change how you feel. I was so excited to find out that even thought about my art while you were there. ^_^ Which thank you again... to me, you were being thoughtful.

MoDaD wrote:
If people think I should step down or go away or surrender whatever “position” I have here I wouldn’t disagree.

Can I slap you around for saying this? No. It was a mistake made. One that you have felt deep regret for.

As for all this work that you have done for the SWAT Kats Revolution at the Anime Con. Thank you for putting so much or your time and resources into this event. Along with recording details of this SWAT Kat event that you have taken the time to post here...making it a mark in SK history. For thinking of the fans, even including us fans that were not able to participate in the con ourselves.